1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a side rail for a shredder, the side rail having fingers embedded therein, the fingers being spaced apart from one another and being parallel to one another.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Side rails for shredders are known, and it is known to have fingers welded to the side rails, the fingers extending inward from the side rails. The fingers are spaced apart from one another and are parallel to one another, and extend between the knives of the shredders. The purpose of the fingers is to remove paper from the sides of the shredder knives and also to prevent paper that has not been shredded from falling between the shredder knives in the area where the fingers are located.
It is also known to have side rails for a shredder with fingers extending inward therefrom where the fingers are integral with the side rail.
It is time consuming and expensive to weld the fingers onto the side rail, and it is difficult to weld the fingers within acceptable tolerances for being both parallel to one another, and being spaced the appropriate distance apart from one another. It is also difficult to weld the fingers so that they are within acceptable tolerances for perpendicularity with respect to the side rail. The knives of the shredder are also spaced apart from one another and are parallel to one another. It is desirable to have the fingers as close as possible to the sides of the knives without contacting the knives. In order to obtain a smaller shred size, the knives are made narrower and the spaces between the knives become narrower. The fingers must also become narrower and are located closer together. This can make welding within the required tolerances even more difficult.
With fingers that are integral with the side rails, a relatively large block of material is used, and much of that material is cut away to create the side rail and fingers. That process can also be expensive and time consuming as the material that is cut away is often wasted.
Also, when the fingers are integral with the side rail, different materials cannot be used for the fingers from that used for the side rails. Similarly, when fingers are welded to the side rail, it can be difficult to use different materials because of the difficulty of welding different materials together.